Website Maintenance: What It Includes, What It Costs, and What Happens Without It
Website maintenance means someone is responsible for keeping the site reachable, fast and secure: hosting, certificate, backups, updates and a few changes a year. Realistically it costs $300 to $1,500 a year in 2026; without it, a WordPress site typically goes stale or gets hacked within a year.
What the word covers
Maintenance isn't "if it breaks, we fix it"; it's making sure it doesn't break. It means five things.
Domain. Renewed yearly ($10 to $25). If it lapses, the website and the company email both stop. Most "our website disappeared" calls are this.
Hosting. The machine the site runs on. For a custom static site this is nearly free today (Cloudflare and similar); for WordPress $100 to $400 a year, and speed depends heavily on it.
Certificate (HTTPS). The padlock in the browser. With an expired certificate Chrome shows a red warning and 90 percent of visitors leave. A good provider renews it automatically; a bad one takes the site down once a year.
Backups and updates. On WordPress the theme and plugins get updated monthly; missed updates are the most common cause of hacked small-business sites. On a static site there's nothing to update, so nothing to hack.
Changes. A new phone number, a new colleague, a new product, a swapped image. Three to five such requests come in a year; the question is whether they're in the fee or billed hourly.
What it costs
| Site type | Realistic yearly cost (2026) | Included |
|---|---|---|
| Custom static site | $300 to $600 | domain watch, certificate, uptime, backups, a few changes |
| WordPress | $600 to $1,500 | plus monthly updates, plugins, security checks |
| Agency contract | $150 to $400 a month | plus content updates, reporting, phone support |
If a quote includes year one, ask for the year-two price and how many changes it covers. These two numbers are missing from most quotes.
What happens without it
Not overnight, slowly. The certificate expires, Chrome warns. The WordPress plugin isn't updated, six months later there's pharmacy spam on the site, which the company learns about from a customer. The domain lapses on a weekend. The phone number on the site is still the old one. Each is a small thing on its own; together they tell the visitor the company doesn't even watch its own affairs.
What to ask your builder for
One sentence in the quote that starts like this: "The first year of hosting is included, from year two it's $X a year, which covers Y changes a year, and I'm the person you call." If that sentence is missing, maintenance isn't solved, only postponed.
Common questions
Does a simple company website need maintenance?
Yes, but less than a WordPress site. For a static custom site, watching the domain, the certificate and uptime is enough; there's no plugin to update or to hack.
How much does website maintenance cost per year?
$300 to $600 for a static site, $600 to $1,500 for WordPress, $150 to $400 a month under an agency contract. Ask how many changes are included.
What happens if I don't renew the domain?
The website and the company email both stop, and after 30 to 60 days anyone can buy the domain. Renewing the domain is the cheapest and most important part of maintenance.